Clinical Neurophysiology xxx (2011) xxxxxx

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Clinical Neurophysiology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/clinph

Editorial

EEG and meditation

Currently a very large body of literature exists on the neurophysiological bases of meditation most importantly because this activity produces positive psychological well-being both during and beyond the period of meditation. The idea that the study of trained meditators can provide insights into the mechanisms of brain functions has been earlier proposed by Barinaga and Davidson (Barinaga, 2003). The term meditation refers to a broad variety of practices. Trained meditators claim to be able to hold attention on a single object for time intervals of hours, much longer than that expected in standard psychometric tests. Moreover they switch attention too fast when compared with controls. Same equivalent extreme performances are reported in the practice of visual imagery: they are able to remember details of very complex pictures for a very long time. These abilities are particularly relevant because the capability to maintain attentional focus and resist distraction is considered to underlie higher order top-down control. The above mentioned characteristics and positive emotional states in Buddhist monks have induced some research groups to study the potential of meditation training using neuroimaging, neuropsychological tests and electrophysiology. For this purpose, since 1980, several Western scientists and Buddhist scholars collaborate in international scientic institutions. The meditation condition has been associated with activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, visual cortex, superior frontal sulcus, supplementary motor area and intraparietal sulcus. Differences were found between expert and novice meditators; these latter showed more activation in regions which negatively correlates with performance in sustained attention tasks (Brefczynsy-Lewis et al., 2007). As concerns the EEG studies, high amplitude gamma activity was found among long-term Buddhist practitioners (Davidson and Lutz, 2008). The intensive training in Vipassana meditation reduces the amplitude of P3b, in event-related evoked potentials (Davidson and Lutz, 2008). A more recent MR investigation (Hlzel et al., 2011) has reported that a specic therapeutic intervention based on meditation is associated with increased gray matter concentration in left hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, temporo-parietal junction and cerebellum. These areas are involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation and self-referential processing. Experiments so far conducted in this eld do not provide uniform results on neuroplasticity and bioelectric phenomena as the effect of meditation process, due to the broad range of these practices and the different degrees of training and methodology employed. Moreover, it is not easy to plan experiments to isolate single cognitive aspects of meditation. In addition, regional activation differences as well as changes in bioelectric activity may depend on the differences in the allocation of cognitive resources when subjects are engaged in mental processes. However, to date, the evidence obtained by studying meditation practice encourage future research in pathological conditions such as attention decit disorders and psychiatric illness. Davidson and Lutz (2008) have also outlined interesting implications of research on meditation and brain function to develop braincomputer interfaces based upon EEG recordings. In this context the article, presented in this issue of the journal, by Berkovich-Ohana et al. (this issue) becomes methodologically relevant. These authors have investigated mindfulness meditation (MM), a particular procedure of Buddhist meditation. Their concepts are based on the fundamental study of Raichle et al. (2001) and core ideas delineated therein. The latter authors, using quantitative metabolic and circulatory measurements from PET and fMRI, identify brain structures which make up the default-mode network (DMN). This network is active during internal processing and decreases its activity when external stimuli engage attention. Starting from the work of Raichle et al. (2001), several investigations have been carried-out in which connectivity within the DMN is found reduced (Alzheimer disease, autism) or increased (schizophrenia, adolescent suffering from ADHD). Broyd et al. (2009) have discussed in detail these aspects and they highlight the relevance of DMN to design models of psychopathology. Specically, in the article presented in this issue, EEG gamma frequencies were analyzed to stress changes in DMN bioelectric activity. We should point-out that gamma frequencies are related to attentive processes and that a previous EEG study (Chen et al., 2008), focused on DMN characteristics of the resting EEG recorded in normal subjects at rest, in eyes-closed and eyes-open conditions, demonstrated that gamma frequencies are limited mainly to the prefrontal area and no signicant state effect on this frequency band was observed. As concerns MM, the practitioners showed a lower frontal gamma activity and an increased posterior gamma power. These ndings, well discussed in their article, also in relation to attentive processes, indicate that EEG can contribute to the novel hypotheses on mechanisms involved in meditation as well as in behavioral and mental changes. The meditation is a particular mental activity. Bioelectric signals, such as EEG and evoked potentials with their good time resolution, are largely used to study these activities in different physiological and pathological conditions. However EEG signals, during mental activities, are not stationary. This complicates the analysis and data interpretation. Classical spectral analysis requires stationarity, and therefore it is necessary to verify it or to determine the time interval in which this hypothesis can be conrmed. The parametric procedures, such as auto regressivemoving average model, give smooth spectral estimates, along with a ne spectral resolution, using epochs of EEG recording of shorter time duration. This approach though might be important, as of now little interest is reserved to frequency parameters such as bandwidth, peak and mean frequencies. In other words the practical use of frequency parameters in this eld is still rather limited

1388-2457/$36.00 2011 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2011.08.016

Editorial / Clinical Neurophysiology xxx (2011) xxxxxx

but, since they convey valuable information regarding EEG signals, we need to analyze them. Hence it is necessary to estimate spectra with a resolution better than those achieved using FFT on epochs of 24 s of duration. Davidson and Lutz (2008) afrm that the goal of future work is to better understand how different circuits are integrated during meditation in order to produce the typical behavioral and mental changes. In this context we retain that the temporal, frequency and the spatial resolutions have the same relevance. Moreover further studies are needed to quantify the relationship between EEG signals recorded from different derivations involved in DMN. The cross-power spectrum may be useful for this purpose. In addition to coherence and phase spectra, the computation of partial coherence function may play a central role; in fact it determines the pattern of interactions between two simultaneously recorded EEG signals eliminating the correlations induced by other signals. In my opinion the relationships between bioelectric activity recorded from the cerebral areas involved in DMN during rest as well as during meditation can be assessed using this approach, taking into account the hypotheses underlying the procedure to estimate power spectrum and other derived functions. The importance to evaluate bioelectric interactions can be inferred, among other works, also from an interesting study by De Luca et al. (2006). The authors, using fMRI, have demonstrated that the brains of individuals at rest display patterns of spontaneous synchronized activity across dissociable neural networks which are thought to be linked to specic cognitive functions. How these patterns are modied in different mental conditions, such as meditation, is a matter of discussion. Berkovich-Ohana and her colleagues have shown here an example of a rational approach to detect effects of meditation on EEG recordings. They analyze the gamma band, which is related to attentive processes, and focus on areas which are known to be part

of DMN. I believe that the results obtained by them, together with those in the recent literature, suggest further studies in which more frequency ranges and the cross-correlation between EEG signals should be considered. References
Barinaga M. Studying the well-trained mind. Science 2003;302:446. Berkovich-Ohana A, Glicksohn J, Goldstein A. Mindfulness-induced changes in gamma band activity implications for the default mode network, selfreference and attention. Clin Neurophysiol, this issue. Brefczynsy-Lewis JA, Lutz A, Schaefer HS, Levison DB, Davidson RJ. Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners. PNAS 2007;104:114838. Broyd SJ, Demanuele C, Debner S, Helps SK, James CJ, Sonuga-Barke EJS. Defaultmode brain dysfunction in mental disorders: a systematic review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2009;33:27996. Chen ACN, Feng W, Zhao H, Yin Y, Wang P. EEG default mode network in the human brain: spectral regional eld powers. Neuroimage 2008;41:56174. Davidson JD, Lutz A. Buddhas brain: neuroplasticity and meditation. IEEE Signal Process Mag 2008;25:1746. De Luca M, Beckmann CF, De Stefano N, Matthews PM, Smith SM. FMRI resting state network dene district modes of long-distance interactions in the human brain. Neuroimage 2006;29:135967. Hlzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T, et al. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Res 2011;191:3643. Raichle ME, MacLeod AM, Snyder AZ, Powers WJ, Gusnard DA. A default mode of brain function. PNAS 2001;98:67682.

Giuseppe Nolfe Istituto di Cibernetica E. Caianiello CNR, Viale Campi Flegrei, 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (Na), Italy Tel.: +39 81 8675140; fax: +39 81 2392320 E-mail address: giuseppe.nolfe@cnr.it